Super Sentai fans have been lucky enough to celebrate some milestone anniversaries in style the last few years, with specials, crossover movies and the like to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Kyoryuger as well as the 20th anniversaries of Hurricaneger, Abaranger and Dekaranger. But a 30th anniversary special? Well that's something new for the franchise entirely. Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: Act Three - Middle-Aged Struggles is a Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club special celebrating 30 years of the first ninja Super Sentai team, reuniting the full team for the first time in decades for an all-new chapter in their story alongside other favourites from the series.
30 years since they defeated Daimaou and successfully sealed the Yōkai once more, the Kakurangers have gone their separate ways. Sasuke travels the country helping Yōkai that wish to live peacefully among humanity, Tsuruhime has opened an orphanage with Bun, Seikai has become a successful businessman, Jiraiya has returned to America to become a special investigator while Saizou still runs the crepe truck with Nekomaru. But as the team reunite to celebrate the birthday of Seikai's adopted son Goro, a dark force targets them.
In the internet age, hate spewed from the web has led to the birth of Next Generation Yōkai - who are now looking to raise their own great leader. As the Yōkai target Goro, the secret behind his birth is revealed and the Kakurangers must suit up once more to save the day.
It really is a testament to just how much some Super Sentai alumni enjoy the shows they were a part of by how easily they're able to slip back into roles they might not have touched for decades. 30 years later and even though they're beginning to feel the ravages of time, the Kakuranger team hasn't changed one bit. From their loving bickering and Jiraiya's English outbursts to simply their dress sense, everything that made these characters so memorable in the first place is still very much present here. But by the same token times change and so do the Kakurangers, with each of them having followed their own path in the time since we last saw them. While we don't spend a whole lot of time delving into their new lives, all of them feel true to the series – whether it be in terms of their character or the spirit of the show. Speaking of which, that's one thing Kakuranger Act Three gets especially well – particularly the humour. The team might be back to show that Super Sentai isn't necessarily a young man's game, doing so isn't the easiest task. Without going too hard on the "aren't they old now" jokes, Kakuranger Act Three lives up to its full title by presenting an amusing and even sometimes relatable take on entering your older years. Their big transformation sequence isn't just the money shot of the special, the immediate aftermath is also one of the best things Toei have done across all these anniversary projects. It's so simple it's brilliant.
The main cast aren't the only faces Toei have brought back for this special though, with plenty of appearances from the extended cast as well. A Kakuranger reunion wouldn't be complete without Ninjaman, but while his appearance is sadly fleeting there's other familiar faces in the form of Hakumenrou and Bun. Meanwhile Jiro and Taro might be gone but not certainly not forgotten, with their actors returning to play a new set of twins. Though they all may only have small parts to play in the story, it's great to see them all included in some capacity.
The main cast aren't the only faces Toei have brought back for this special though, with plenty of appearances from the extended cast as well. A Kakuranger reunion wouldn't be complete without Ninjaman, but while his appearance is sadly fleeting there's other familiar faces in the form of Hakumenrou and Bun. Meanwhile Jiro and Taro might be gone but not certainly not forgotten, with their actors returning to play a new set of twins. Though they all may only have small parts to play in the story, it's great to see them all included in some capacity.
It isn't just how effortlessly the cast are able to slip back into their roles though, it's the fact that just about everything about this feels like a Kakuranger episode made 30 years later. It brings back a new announcer, it has the comic book style visuals of the fight sequences, it has the ninja suits and the Kakuranger Ball, it has that familiar techno beat soundtrack the original series had. It even has new versions of the opening credits and end theme dance sequence. Sure it has that same modern slickness director Koichi Sakamoto usually brings to his work, but both he and writer Ayumi Shimo (whose previous Sentai work includes Ryusoulger, Kiramager and the recent Avataro Sentai Donbrothers vs Donburis) know exactly what makes Kakuranger tick.
That all said some things will inevitably change in three decades, one of which being the characters at play in the story. While all the important faces are back to fight a new set of villains, Seikai's adopted son Goro is both a brand-new cast member and pivotal to the story. While he may not be trained in the ninja arts like his father, having Seikai become his adopted father represents a surprise maturity for Ninja Yellow while his orphan backstory ties him closely to Tsuruhime as well. With 30 years behind them it shouldn't be a surprise that "the next generation" is very much at the forefront of Kakuranger Act Three, and although nothing may ever come of the seeds it sows it's still fun to see it give Kakuranger something of a future.
That all said some things will inevitably change in three decades, one of which being the characters at play in the story. While all the important faces are back to fight a new set of villains, Seikai's adopted son Goro is both a brand-new cast member and pivotal to the story. While he may not be trained in the ninja arts like his father, having Seikai become his adopted father represents a surprise maturity for Ninja Yellow while his orphan backstory ties him closely to Tsuruhime as well. With 30 years behind them it shouldn't be a surprise that "the next generation" is very much at the forefront of Kakuranger Act Three, and although nothing may ever come of the seeds it sows it's still fun to see it give Kakuranger something of a future.
Kakuranger Act Three also takes a slightly different approach to the Yōkai, which is a bold move given that they were one of the more interesting elements of the original series. Immediately the special builds itself on solid ground when it comes to its villains – a new breed of Yōkai created from the kind of hatred that wasn't around three decades ago. With this new generation of Yōkai come two new takes on familiar creatures from the series, albeit sadly without any direct comparison made to either them or their mythological counterparts (one of the key aspects from the series this special didn’t replicate) – the icy Snow (Yuki-Onna) and razor-sharp Weasel (Kamaitachi). Along with them is Flower Ninja Gabera, again a new generation version of the show's Flowery Kunoichi. While there much in the way of characterisation or development for the three of them, they are however a means to an end when it comes to setting up the special's more interesting twist with the Yōkai. With the original Yōkai having technically survived the series it would have been so easy just to bring them back outright, but instead Kakuranger Act Three continues the story in an interesting way without wholly undoing the team's previous achievements. Kenichi Endo reprising his role as Young Noble Junior comes as a very pleasant surprise, but how the character is used in the story is perhaps an even bigger surprise. Rather than being too preoccupied with the concept of the Yōkai returning, Kakuranger Act Three is a story about family through and through. This makes perfect sense given how many different strands of family the series had (the Kakurangers as a found family, Tsuruhime and her father, even Daiamou and Junior), and this special carries it on wonderfully.
It is worth noting however that Kakuranger Act Three slightly differs from many of the other recently released Super Sentai anniversary projects in that it is a direct-to-streaming special rather than a V-Cinext movie. Truth to be told the difference between the two (outside of this lacking an initial theatrical release) is mostly semantics, so it's very easy to slot Kakuranger Act Three alongside them. At around 30 minutes this special is a little shorter though, and as such time constraints still prevent some things developing as much as fans might perhaps like them too. Similarly it does feel like Kakuranger Act Three might be playing with a slightly smaller budget than its contemporaries in certain areas, with the Yōkai costumes not quite measuring up the imagination they had in the original series. But while these are fair complaints to have about the special, it's also important to note that they don't bring it down in any significant way either. Sure the Yōkai costumes could be a little more impressive, but at the time the sharp-suited/idol look the Next Generation Yuki-Onna and Kamaitachi have works with this new take on the monsters. The Sanmotogorouzaemon costume makes up for them in terms of quality, but again it feels a little more "generic Super Sentai villain" when compared to the previous Yōkai aesthetic. Similarly while it's disappointing Gabera doesn't get her own version of the Flowery Kunoichi uniform, the out of suit ninja fighting is a big part of Kakuranger's charm. The appearance of Muteki Shogun at the very end does feel like a bit of an outlier since it feels like Toei rolled the suit out only for it just stand around, but with the Three God Generals being key characters in the series it probably wouldn't have felt right if one of them hadn't shown up in some capacity.
The most important thing about an anniversary special though is bringing back familiar faces, and it isn't just the Kakuranger cast that got in on this. Kakuranger Act Three also features appearances from several familiar faces across tokusatsu, including Ayane Kinoshita (Ultraman R/B's Saki Mitsurugi) as Gabera and Kokoro Aoshima (Kamen Rider Geats' Tsumuri) as Snow/Yuki-Onna. The end credits dance brings even more cameos with it, the most obvious being Nao Nagasawa (Nanami/Hurricane Blue), Kohei Yamamoto (Kouta/Hurricane Yellow) and Hideya Tawada (Kinji/StarNinger) representing the other ninja Sentai that succeeded them. There's even some behind the scenes cameos with veteran stuntman Seiji Takaiwa appearing alongside his wife Rie Murakami as a pair of rehabilitated Yōkai. But a much deeper cut is Satomi Hirose (Tsuruhime/Ninja White) also reprising her role as Hanako Yamabuki from Yugen Jikkou Sisters Chouchoutrian – the last of Toei's Fushigi Comedy Series in which she starred alongside her fellow "Punishment Sailor Sisters". Though they may not have featured in the special outright little cameos like these just make the world of Toei tokusatsu feel that much bigger, and with so many of the cast seemingly eager to reprise their roles the idea of a full ninja Sentai crossover/reunion is definitely something worth dreaming about.
Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: Act Three - Middle-Aged Struggles is a wonderful celebration of Super Sentai's first ninja team, telling a new chapter in their story with the same sense of humour that made the show a success 30 years ago. While as always there are parts that could have benefitted from a longer run time, overall the special succinctly recreates the Kakuranger experience three decades later with a drama, action, a cast that slip back into their roles effortlessly and the same visuals and soundtrack you remember from the original series. Even in the midst of middle-age, the Kakurangers are still top of their game.
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